Site Fidelity — Ruth Doan MacDougall

The fifth sequel to the best seller THE CHEERLEADER.

Site Fidelity: an ornithology term for the return of birds to the same place each year.

It is 2008 and the Great Recession is looming, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, and the winter is hard, especially on people who aren't as young as they used to be.

Twenty-three years ago, Henrietta Snow―known as Snowy―and her husband bought a general store near her hometown in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Ever since his death two years after, she and her daughter, Ruhamah, have been running the store. They recently bought a second general store in a neighboring town, and now Ruhamah wants to acquire a third. Scared, Snowy wonders if Ruhamah wants to rule a general-store empire.

What Snowy wants is another site, a fresh start. She hankers for what she calls a Maine-style Bali Ha'i, an island she has visited with her friend Puddles, where the scenery is "the ever-changing ocean, not the motionless mountains."

Is this longing for change a sign of aging? How can she leave the responsibilities that are tying her down?